2017 race 8 Azerbaijan comments thread

I had no idea that Nicole had interfered with Lewis' performance last year. However he was lamentable.

I think Vettel had a get out of jail free card somewhere. Ramming another car and NOT being black flagged. Lucky geezer. Lots of action that was a fantastic race but seriously off kilter.

Hamilton brake tested Vettel as the SC was leaving the track. For all his whinging about the slow speed of the SC to then back up the car behind you is just poor sportsmanship so Hamilton got what he deserved from Seb with that wheel banging. The racing Gods obviously agreed because they gave Seb more points despite the penalty.

Great race but the motoGP race blew it into the weeds. Kudos to Bottas: Drive of the day imho.

The stewards have looked at the data and Hamilton didn't brake test Vettel. Whatever happened, there's no excuse for deliberately driving into another car and why is Vettel denying it happened?

Anyway, all that aside, mad race but it mixed things up nicely. I was surprised at how well Stroll did all weekend, but good on him.

Getting away with driving into another car deliberately is a demonstration of how far people will go to protect the competition and the F1 money flow. He should have been black flagged and banned for a number of races.

The real penalty is that if Seb hadn't got the drive-through penalty he would have won the race because Mercedes can't build a headrest. Either that or Hamilton's head is too big......

Maldanado did it at Spa, cut acroos someone and took part of their wing off, IIRC, he got off lightly too.

Oops.
I only half read what Chris had written, I thought he was referring to the various fisticuffs over the years

They're both childish wankers IMHO. They should just let them both settle it privately, mano a mano.

Maybe it was dislodged by the Mercedes having been driven into? Twice.

Apparently Vettel now has 9 penalty points on his racing license...


www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2017/06/26/vettel-now-has-more-penalty-points-than-any-driver-has-ever-scored/

When ex-Ferrari F1 boss Stefano Domenicali was the FIA’s Single Seater Commission President, he cancelled the remaining Formula 3 races at Monza because of the wild driving in the first race. I really don’t like over-zealous action over incidents; if you put 20 cars out there in the heat of competition, it is invertible that they will occasionally collide. However, there are scenario’s that require stern action.

The FIA has been very good at setting a standard for other championships to follow. Even though sportscar racing had the “code 60” for some years, the introduction of the Virtual Safety Car highlighted the glaring issue of excessive speeds under yellow flags for other championships. Yesterday was another example where the FIA needed to set a precedent for others to follow. Particularly with open wheel cars, deliberate contact is a big no-no. One might say the contact happened at low speed. But if someone only gets a 10 second stop and go penalty for that, perhaps dishing out your anger might be worth it? And what if such deliberate contact happens at higher speeds in the future? It doesn’t take much to get these cars airborne, and perhaps we would be talking about a different story.

I have been a big fan of the FIA encouraging the stewards to let the race play out, not penalising contact as a mere formality and respecting that hard racing will sometimes result in mistakes and collisions. However, this wasn't hard racing. This was deliberate contact under Safety Car conditions. While the stewards have been correct to not penalise common racing contact, they needed to give a harsher penalty to Vettel to send the message that such rage will result in harsh consequences. This unfortunately comes down to the random nature of the steward panels - an issue not only related to this GP. I'm not going to criticise Danny Sullivan, the race steward for Azerbaijan, he was a great driver back in the day. Danny would have certainly given his professional input, but there are other stewards from the various motosport associations around the world who would have been equally as influential. IndyCar, IMSA and the Pirelli World Challenge have permanent steward panels, and they are all the better for it. You get consistent and appropriate decisions from people who know about the intricacies of their particular series, rather than a bunch of new stewards every weekend who are learning on the job. Especially as the selection criteria looks like a lot to be desired. As the FIA's driver steward, I vote for Tom Kristensen. He's been a steward before, and I can't think of a more level-headed, informed driver steward.  

This controversy was a product of the restarts, which were always going to be a problem. The leader in whatever series had no choice but to start accelerating after the final turn. If Hamilton has bolted before turn 16, he would have given Vettel a gigantic slipstream along the pit straight. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, it would have been impossible to see the Safety Car because turns 17, 18 and 19 are blind. On the first restart, Hamilton came perilously close to actually overtaking the Safety Car before it entered the pits.

Hamilton had no choice but to restart at different points in order to get away from the chasing pack. As an example, on the first restart he bolted just after turn 16. On the second restart he went just before the Safety Car line. If Hamilton had repeated his restart like the first time, he would have been swamped before turn 1. Any driver would have done this. The most bizarre aspect is that Vettel thought Hamilton would bolt after turn 15. You would have had to been a complete mug to do that, offering an almighty slipstream for the chasing pack. Vettel surely had to know that Hamilton was never going to restart the race after turn 15. If he had, he would have passed the Safety Car before it entered the pits, resulting in a penalty.

The continual Safety Car periods reminded me of a NASCAR race, the old saying there is that cautions breed cautions. True enough, turns 1, 2 and 3 were simply too inviting for there not to be contact on restarts. Ocon misjudged where Perez was and that slammed them both into the wall. That debris bought out another Safety Car period. In more teammate turmoil, Ericsson collided with Wehrlein going into turn 3. The situation seems desperate at Sauber, Wehrlein actually had to ask if he could overtake Ericsson. Oh dear, Ericsson’s financial backers appear to be even hijacking the race strategy. I think that will only lead into a downward spiral, what if Sauber have an opportunity to hire someone who might be quicker than Ericsson? Better not, that someone might upset Ericsson’s investors!

I do question Race Control’s decisions yesterday. The final two Safety Car periods and the red flag was simply an overreaction. The pieces of debris were located between turns 2 and 3, therefore marshals would have had time to clear the debris before the cars came back around, given the length of the track. At worst, a Virtual Safety Car would have frozen the field at a regulated speed, without the need for another restart. The Virtual Safety Car was supposed to be have been introduced to negate full physical deployment of the Merc for debris and stricken cars. Watching yesterday’s race, one would have thought that the VSC didn’t exist.

Azerbaijan was perhaps a turning point in the season, and not for the restarts or accidents. I believe Mercedes have taken a step forward in terms of car development, whilst Ferrari’s development has been rather static. Mercedes’ Spanish GP update was eye-opening, and now they’ve been curing their tyre warm-up issues on smooth surfaces, as the front lock-out for Mercedes illustrated in Azerbaijan. Ferrari run the risk of the same weakness that denied them of the championship in 2012, as they failed to bring updates that improved the car against Red Bull.

I disagree: the VSC on a street circuit with small debris removal is an accident waiting to happen: unlike the SC which bunches all the cars up so there is a nice long gap before that phat (sic) Merc arrives the VSC keeps the cars at the designated gap they had, so there probably isn't enough time for a person to leave a position of safety, recover the bits / sweep up a bit and return to a position of safety.

The red flag was bollocks though.

How would Alonso keep up with a 720S?